The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing , #1

Hardcover, 231 pages

English language

Published Oct. 14, 2014 by Ten Speed Press.

ISBN:
978-1-60774-730-7
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
879469400

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3 stars (21 reviews)

Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles?

Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again. Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo’s clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list).

With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house “spark joy” (and which don’t), this international bestseller will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home—and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.

5 editions

reviewed The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, #1)

The philosophy of tiding

4 stars

Having read one of Marie Kondo's books previously and having watched her series on Netflix a lot of the content mentioned in this book was not new. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up focused on her history from a young child and how her passion has existed since a young age. What will be reassuring for many is the use of her own mistakes which can reassure you that an expert in the field of tiding makes mistakes and has since learnt from them. This could support people who may feel overwhelmed before, during or after the tiding process. The book is an easy listen and broken into 30 minute chapters at most making it easy to delve into. There are times during the book where I question her methods and I think that is perfectly fine. The overarching ideology is treating your belongings with respect and care. This is …

reviewed The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, #1)

Review of 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This woman clearly has OCD. She manically cleaned every wire in a metal shower rack, and worked herself into tears over a slimy shampoo bottle. She's "sworn off" her addiction to storage solutions, insisting you should organize everything into shoeboxes instead. I think a lot of this book is her journey reconciling her tidying obsession with her yearning for tranquility.

Her subjective guidelines of what to trash and how much of something to keep are useful: there is no magic number of socks that's best for every person. Her insistence that you should get rid of momentous because if it was really that great, you wouldn't need something to remember it by is stupid, and I wish she'd spent more time thinking that part through: I've found that photos and trinkets I didn't care for in childhood spark joy in me now.

My takeaways from this book are: 1) get …

Review of 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

I have one or more friends currently reading/planning to read it; so, I finally had to know what the hype was about. I've been yelling at the book throughout.

I was in professional organizing and productivity training for 7 years. I've read a broad range of authors on the subject, participated in professional development, belonged to NAPO, and practiced in many homes and businesses.

Here are a few thoughts:

There is nothing ground-breaking or new in the book. Most of the book is the same thought or two repeated over and over. It's tedious, at best.

Also, the fact that she's been tidying over half her life isn't all that impressive, as she keeps insisting that she started when she was 5 years old. Give me a break! As far as I can tell, she is a single woman, living alone. If I lived alone, my house would look different …

reviewed The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, #1)

Review of 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

I have one or more friends currently reading/planning to read it; so, I finally had to know what the hype was about. I've been yelling at the book throughout.

I was in professional organizing and productivity training for 7 years. I've read a broad range of authors on the subject, participated in professional development, belonged to NAPO, and practiced in many homes and businesses.

Here are a few thoughts:

There is nothing ground-breaking or new in the book. Most of the book is the same thought or two repeated over and over. It's tedious, at best.

Also, the fact that she's been tidying over half her life isn't all that impressive, as she keeps insisting that she started when she was 5 years old. Give me a break! As far as I can tell, she is a single woman, living alone. If I lived alone, my house would look different …

reviewed The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, #1)

Review of 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This was quite a surprising book. The sorting method in it is quite effective and provokes indeed a lot of changes in your mind that are quite astonishing. However I couldn't shake the feeling that the author is not far from a clinical obsession by the way the book is written, which can be quite disturbing (I found myself saying "Oh come on" at least ten times while reading this), nevertheless the tips and tricks used in it are really useful and made me start to sort my whole flat is a way I feel much better about. So it's worth the time to read :)

reviewed The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, #1)

Review of 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

Not designed for people who don't have emotional attachments to the things they own. I found it difficult to discard things using her rules, because I tend to hang on to most things for practical rather than sentimental reasons. But, interesting read for its Japanese-ness.

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